Marc's Public Blog - Flying

This post is not glamorous as the 10 year mark once, mostly because I did many of the cool flights in the first 10 years, and also have many other hobbies (which in the last 10 years included a lot of RC flights, including cool long range FPV flights). Yes, I used the opportunity to renew my BFR and flight medical (basicmed), and do this post:

got some night training at the same time, did ok on my night landing

here is my blog on the first 10 years (clickme)

Here are all my bestof pictures from the last 20 years: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8EZeGWW6KurJiCAE6

Anyway, here are the 20 year stats:

780H of (150H in the last 10 years)

1130 landings (about 130 in the last 10 years)

So yeah, it's really not a lot, but I made the flights count. I also should note that I stopped doing lots of training flights just because, or staying current just to stay current, or getting checked out in more planes that I would reasonably not be able to fly. At this point I pretty much only fly C182, or a 172 when I have to. For the distances I fly, staying current in SR22, the higher prices and lesser availability aren't really worth it (it's the how much time are you saving in flight vs the higher time you spent to be able to save that time).

Highlights for the second 10 years:

the biggest highlight was a 22 day flying safari through Eastern Australia (clickme)

each time I flew myself to burning man was super cool, the perfect place to take advantage of personal flying.

And again the most practical use of my license has been to fly to Willows airport where I've been racing my car. Turns out I've now flown there 42 times so far.

Only one unexpected experience in these last 10 years:

Partial engine failure coming back from Burning man in 2022, undetermined, but poor maintenance and engine had to be changed after my emergency landing in LVK. I wasn't blamed for anything, old plane and no working engine intruments.

So just like I said 10 years ago, I'm going to continue to fly when it makes sense, but it's not my main hobby and I don't see the need to fly myself with weather restrictions if I can fly commercial to the same place (LA area) for a 5th or 10th of the price. But it's nice to know that if there is somewhere unusual to go or the zombie apocalypse happen and all commercial planes are taken down, I have options left :)

And as parting words, some of my bestof bestof pictures:

night flight back from Palm Springs to Palo Alto